We kept waiting for the bluebonnets to come out for us to do Shelley’s second session in her prom dress… but they never came! Oh well, as pretty as Shelley is, no one is paying attention to the flowers anyway! She is on the dance team, too, so we got a few shots of her in one of her sparkly dance outfits!

I first met Jelly a couple years ago. She was quiet, sweet, and artistic and I have loved getting to know her! She is about to graduate from Madison HS and in the fall, she’ll be off to New York for college. How exciting! We had a great time on Sunday shooting her senior portraits and I wish her all the best for the future!

Hannah is classic. She just oozes grace, beauty, and timelessness. Of course, it was awesome trying to capture that. I was also excited because for a while, I’ve been wanting to sort of replicate the old Hollywood film sort of look, and the lighting in the church, coupled with Hannah’s classic beauty allowed me a chance to play with that a bit!

This Julie is also in my small group at church, but she and I go way back before that… I have known her since the day I moved here (maybe the day after). She was just a little kid then. She would come into my office at church when I was interning and she would sing and talk and laugh a lot. She’s still just as delightful seven years later. She’s always smiling and she’s up for anything! She brought her boyfriend along, too, and we had a lot of fun!

Nate’s job was to keep Julie smiling!

Julie is one of the high school girls in my small group at church and she is awesome! She is a senior at MacArthur High School and she is the editor of the paper at Mac! We had fun the other day visiting a couple of the San Antonio Missions and getting some cool shots.

I have been “tagged” by my sister-in-law, Natalie, and also was prompted to give this question some thought from a post on the Espinoza’s blog.

The question is:
What three skills or hobbies would you learn if you had all the time, tools, and money you needed?

My top three?

1. I would LOVE to learn how to cut hair. I don’t know why, but I think it would be amazingly fun and it would be an interesting creative outlet… if anyone would be willing to let me get “creative” with their hair. Yikes. That actually sounds scary when I put it that way.

2. Someday I would like to learn to dance. We didn’t really do any dancing growing up, so I’ve always been a bit timid. But it looks like so much fun. One of these days I’ll just cut loose!

3. Fashion Design - How cool would it be to be able to design and sew my own clothes?! Wow!

Not far behind are skills such as cooking, scrapbooking, and… marketing. I’m weird.

What about you?

this face?

I have known Jessica since she was born (seems like only yesterday. *sigh* ha ha!) and I was so honored when she decided to drive all the way from Dallas to let me shoot her senior portraits! What an honor! And could there be a more beautiful subject?!

Powerhouse Studios has just come up with a fun and economical way to walk away with all of the images from your portrait session. We are now offering our First Editions Proof books that are small, compact, easy to share with friends, and are just a little bit artsy! These 5×5 proof books include all of the images from your session, and our fine art borders give your book a fine art touch.

Keep your eyes open for other new products coming soon!

Abby is a typical 3-year old who does not like being in front of the camera much, so when she agreed to let me take her picture on Saturday, I was thrilled. I told her we could go anywhere that she wanted to do pictures. She chose… the front yard. At first, I was disappointed because I had grand plans for cool pictures, and the front yard seemed boring and ugly. But I just followed her around and she had the best time, and when we were done, I realized that I had a set of images that were very her. Sitting on the front porch catching “rollie bugs”, waiting for the mail to come, and picking flowers. That’s Abby’s world.

I would encourage all of you out there to put the same amount of thought into your portraits. Find locations or items that mean something to you, no matter how silly or boring someone else might think it. When it’s over, you’ll have portraits that are distinctly you — and that is priceless.